


Chances and Choices

by DarkDanc3r



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse of Elipses..., Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Circle of Light (Transformers), Fix-It of Sorts, Great Swords are Manipulative Jerks, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Minor Character Death, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Drug Use, Polyamorous Robots because Of Course They Are, Post-Transformers: Lost Light 25, Questionable Military Technology, Ratchet Lives, Rung Lives, Say NO to Cybertronian Occupation of Earth, Semi-Graphic Description of Death, Semi-Public Sex, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Swords, There was supposed to be plot, Threesome - M/M/M, Time Skips, Unreliable Narrator, Vaginal Fingering, Wing lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-09-26 05:47:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20384659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkDanc3r/pseuds/DarkDanc3r
Summary: Life is a series of chances and choices. And sometimes the choices aren't made by the ones most affected by them. So when a semi-sentient hunk of metal decides it wants something, everyone around it is taken along for the ride. Follow a trail of choices and the chance occurrences that take Challenger of Ways from where it is now hopefully to where it wants to be.There is ART for my fic! I will embed in the chapter it belongs in, but here is a link in the meantime!Art!





	1. It's Only Half Past the Point of No Return

The Great Swords understood time differently than the warm ones who sometimes bore them. 

It made them - to a degree - prescient. Gave them a view of things to come… events that might occur: warm ones that might bond with a Great Sword - or die trying; shifts in the universe that might lead to more of their kind being needed - or more resting between bearers in the quiet darkness.

Sometimes the Swords shared their knowledge with the warm ones they bonded to… many times they tried and only failed to share their knowledge in what the warm ones might consider a timely manner. The warm ones just thought and experienced so much faster than the Great Swords, who saw eons pass as mechs did astroseconds where age and lifespan were concerned. The oldest amongst them had seen Primus stop his traitorous brother, watched him become the Forgotten One from the back of a mechling spared the fires of Unicron’s wrath. Their youngest, as such things were considered, had witnessed the fall of Cybertron’s first Golden Age as a gem amongst many, not yet Awakened, not yet forged…

...for the Great Swords - they thought of themselves thus, so long had they existed that they had forgotten their first name, and the names of the Ones Who Forged - had been Forged by great beings as gifts for the Cybertronians thought worthy of their purity, knowledge, and strength. Each Great Sword, with its Awakened Gem, shared knowledge one with another, though they all had their individual strengths. 

And preferences. 

The Circle of Light, the only well-known bearers of Great Swords throughout the history of Cyberton, had been created to protect the blades as much as use them for the good of the Cybertronian people.

When the Great War came and the Exodus occurred, many of the Great Swords wept in their own way for the people left behind, but it was an abstract loss to many of the blades, who had been locked away from common mecha in a shielded armory to ‘protect’ them. Their isolation continued in the quest for a new home, and eased only when new members joined the Circle as Theophany was settled and the Circle opened apprenticeships to the mechs who had survived the journey to a new home - and later to the offspring of those same mecha.

The bonded swords tried to keep their isolated brethren updated, but sometimes contact was lost - the warm ones were unpredictable at best, and downright chaotic at their worst. Though it was infrequent, a Knight and their blade could be lost, damaged so severely that there was no return. It happened less often after the Exodus, but then the Knights rarely left the Citadel, let alone Theophany, and few extinguished.

More to say, few extinguished in this reality.

Multiple realities existed, mirrored in each other in odd and sometimes unusual ways. The Great Swords themselves seemingly shared a mind between all the blades of a shared name, sharing experiences and sometimes able to save mechs in one universe that had been lost in another. While the Great Swords existed across the many universes, they almost never bonded to a warm one in more than one existence at a time. Infrequently, they shared a bonded from reality to reality, but never at the same time, though at times two blades that shared the same warm one would keep each other updated on their shared charge.

In one universe, the blade known as Challenger of Ways lost its pair bonded partner - the blade Spark in Darkness - and took the loss poorly. Spark in Darkness, and the warm one who bore it, perished when a star went nova long before its time, though the blade’s being remained across the realities. 

Challenger of Ways, in the way of many of a being who had lost love unexpectedly, grasped at the only possibility it saw that would return it to the physical presence of the one it loved. 

Time worked differently for the Great Swords, and for the multiples of universes, and Challenger of Ways sought to use that difference to its advantage. Spark in Darkness, it knew, existed still in a reality where Challenger of Ways itself did not - had never been Forged - and if Challenger of Ways could have its way, it would find a warm one who could take it to that reality. This reality, the one it existed in, held little attachment for Challenger of Ways, and it would never truly leave its fellows as they were always in contact. Without a physical blade, though, Spark in Darkness  **was** lost to it, however, and that Challenger of Ways could not stand. 

Grasping at threads of time and chance, Challenger of Ways contrived of a way to move between realities, though it would require the efforts of many warm ones and might never come to be… but any chance was better than the loneliness of missing its partner.

First, though… the warm one who bore it, a mech by the name of Wing, would need to pass Challenger of Ways on to the only warm one capable of making the jump. It had not yet met the warm one who would…

A hot flare of  ** _want_ ** flashed through the warm one who bore Challenger of Ways against his back as a Cybertronian came into view, armor cracked and dented, red optics flashing distrust at the sight of another mech on an otherwise (theoretically) deserted planet.

This one. This was the one Challenger of Ways needed.

Now to claim him.


	2. I'm Losing to You, Baby I'm No Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (wherein the story earns its Explicit status)
> 
> Life is a series of choices. Sometimes small: warmed Energon or chilled. Sometimes large: save the Leaker or let him go. This is a choice Drift never thought he'd make again. Guess he was wrong.

There was something about the taste of the New Crystal City mech that got under Drift’s plating. Made him want to be a better mechanism, and he hated that. It was like the Syk addiction, only in reverse. Made him want more, sure, but like maybe he could get enough if he just kissed a little harder. Or a little deeper. Or let the mech do things to him that he would never have agreed to sober. Being with Wing felt like being drunk all over again. Only he’d never been one for being drunk on Energon. Because there was something to be said for living in an area with no Energon to speak of - drunks weren’t really a thing. Sky and Boosters, sure, because mechs needed to get away from the reality of the gutters, but drunks they weren’t. 

Wing, though, Wing left him feeling drunk. Or high. The best kind of high. And at the same time, the worst, because he was sure he was changing and that was something the Syk and boosters never did. They didn’t change a mech, just maybe distilled him down to his base elements because there wasn’t enough left in the system after the starvation and the boosting to be anyone but what you were.

Guess that meant that at his core, Drift was nothing but a whore. 

Except...

He didn’t feel like a whore when he was with Wing. 

And he felt like maybe he could be better than the Decepticon Deadlock. And that scared him a lot more than being a whore ever had. He’d only been selling his plating. Now he felt like he was selling out part of himself to make his dealer feel better about him. 

Like him more. 

More willing to do that thing with his glossa that Drift was pretty sure was illegal in every known galaxy between here and Cybertron. Frag, but he was able to distract Drift from even the deepest thoughts when he got going.

Drift had never met a mech as happy to go down on another mech as Wing was. The jetling seemed to live for pleasuring others, whether in the berth or out of it. Right now, he was fragging Drift with his mouth, sucking the speedster’s spike like it was a pricy Energon candy from the boutiques in the City. Or the finest Energon. 

How was he supposed to focus past the assault to his senses that the damned jet was? How was he supposed to do anything when the mech was sucking his brain module out through his spike? 

Wing’s glossa swirled around the tip of his spike and all thought left; he exploded like there was nothing left to matter at all.

Except… except this time he came back down too fast. 

Wing was still kneeling between his thighs, still had that pleased little smile going around the edges like this was the best idea he’d had in the history of ever. Lightning still crackled over his plating, charge crawling over his lines and he knew that one overload wasn’t going to be enough. 

Honestly... hadn’t been enough for the last few… encounters… they’d had. Just like the fragging Syk, he’d gone and gotten used to the pleasure, and it wasn’t enough anymore. 

He knew if he grabbed Wing - pulled the jet to his feet and slammed him against the wall and pushed between Wing’s legs - he’d get more of what he wanted. But it still wasn’t enough. Wing’s valve was as talented as his mouth but it was the same kind of pleasure. Amazing, processor-blowing pleasure, but the same nonetheless.

And it wasn’t enough.

Drift shifted in Wing’s hold, felt the jet’s hands tighten on his hips, and wondered again if he was really going to accept the changes being pushed on him. If he was going to choose to give up the one thing he had left that nobody else could touch.

Wing must’ve caught on that something was up - something more than Drift still being hard as a rock and obviously ready for more action - because the jet’s golden optics narrowed slightly. He started to open his mouth, started to say something, but Drift moved before the white mech could actually make a sound.

Well… part of him moved.

In the quiet of the hallway they’d been defiling (who knew the good little Knight had an exhibitionist streak a mile wide?) the sound of a click and the soft slide of a panel opening was amazingly loud.

At least it felt that way to Drift.

He’d had an itch - healing and integrating new parts always itched - but it was one he’d tried to ignore. He’d sworn he wasn’t going to give in to that itch. Had plans to weld the fragging panel shut after the medic stopped insisting on integration checks. (Mind, this hasn’t happened yet. Stupid pushy medics.)

Now… he waits to see how Wing reacts to the action. Watches the jet’s face as the scent of heated lubricant - not that there’s much of it, but Wing’s face is  **right there** \- hits him; sees those golden optics spiral tight and then flare wide in reaction. He can’t be sure what the white jet is thinking, but the flare of desire - of  **want** \- makes it obvious that he won’t be pushed away. 

There was, in fact, something incredibly gratifying to Drift in the way Wing licked his lips and looked up at him with what could almost be called a greedy expression… possibly a bit concerning, though, as well. It had been a long fragging time since he’d seen anyone with that expression anywhere near his interfacing equipment. 

Especially his valve.

But he was committed, and did have to admit that the finger tracing the edges of his valve assembly felt… good. Almost too light, light enough to make him squirm, whether into or away from the touch he wasn’t entirely sure. 

Wing seemed to pick up on the discomfort, somehow (Drift was starting to wonder if Soundwave wasn’t the only telepath around), and firmed his touch. Stroked the edges of his assembly and inwards slowly, until he was tracing the platelets that protected his actual valve entrance. 

Drift shivered under the touch, biting harder on his knuckles to keep from moaning at the intense sensation. He’d forgotten just how sensitive a valve could be straight off the assembly line, when there had not yet been any time to grow accustomed to touch.

He’d grown accustomed to touch - painful touch - pretty fragging quick the first time. Maybe this would be different…

Before Drift could dwell on just how badly his first interfacing experience had gone (how most of them had gone, honestly) he had to fight to find his balance as Wing suddenly drew his left leg up and over to drape over one carefully tucked turbine. He grabbed at Wing’s helm until he could find a little stability, and looked down to meet the jet’s glowing gold optics.

He swallowed thickly as he watched Wing lick lips that just a moment ago had been wrapped around his spike, and if he’d thought the white jet had seemed greedy before… he watched as one golden optic winked at him…

And then Drift very much understood why Wing had dragged him off balance, and he whined around knuckles he didn’t remember biting as Wing’s glossa swirled around his anterior node, firm hot pressure that made his valve cycle tighten and ache with emptiness. He couldn’t even begrudge Wing the little chuckle his whine no doubt earned, torn between trying to keep his balance in the awkward position and trying not to make  **more** noise as Wing kept working at him.

Drift let his optics offline as he focused, one hand still on Wing’s helm but it was loose and flexing against the white armor, not really holding on, the other stuffed in his mouth to keep from embarrassing himself further - or giving them away. He was pretty sure he’d flat kill someone if they were interrupted before Wing could finish him. Superior fighting skills or no, someone was going to die.

In that brief moment Drift had considered all the ways somebody was going to die - messily - Wing had apparently decided he wasn’t getting Drift’s full attention, and that one finger that had been teasing the platelets of Drift’s valve slowly slipped inside. Just the first third of it, but it was more penetration than Drift had experienced in a  **very** long time (wire thin medical probes so didn’t count), and his valve clamped down as tightly as it could. 

The awkward position didn’t allow for a lot of movement, but Drift tried his best to rock into the penetration, wordlessly demanding more. He didn’t whine again, but it was a near thing as Wing’s finger moved and Wing went back to teasing and tasting at his anterior node, ratcheting his pleasure up in leaps and bounds. Drift couldn’t remember ever being  **this** sensitive but he was rapidly approaching overload and Wing had barely even begun!

Wing’s free hand caught and shifted Drift’s stance just slightly, tilting his hips forward just a little further, and suddenly the white jet’s glossa joined his finger in opening him up. Wing’s nasal arch pressed against his node, nudging and shifting over the sensitive spot with every teasing stroke of the white jet’s glossa. 

At this rate, Drift was going to have permanent dental impressions in his knuckles, biting down on another whine as heat pooled low and his valve clenched, trying to catch glossa or fingers to pull something deeper. To scratch that itch he’d tried so hard to ignore.

Drift’s fingers scrabbled at Wing’s helm, catching a finial and holding on for dear life as the white jet pressed his finger deeper, probing and stroking at untouched nodes and that was all it took. He folded around the jet’s helm, gasping and whining into his knuckles as the overload burst through him, left him weak-kneed (a dangerous prospect, balanced as he was on only one leg) and wobbling as heat strobed through his frame.

Wing only hummed, the vibration only just discernible through the way his frame shook, and lifted Drift’s other leg completely off the ground, shifting until he had both of Drift’s legs over his shoulder turbines and bracketing his helm. Were Drift capable of thinking he’d wonder how the jet could lift his heavy grounder frame so easily, but Drift is well past any thought beyond how good he feels.

His back is pressed to the wall, no doubt leaving hellacious paint streaks and gouges, legs bracketing that white helm as Wing goes back to opening him up with glossa and careful fingers. Drift can’t remember ever feeling this hot interfacing, strung tight and straining into every touch and crooning sound vibrating against his array. Scrabbling for a way to ground himself against the pleasure he dives into his code and offlines his vocalizer almost violently so that he can grab onto Wing’s helm with both hands and hold on for dear life. 

Holds on with hands and the press of his thighs as Wing teases him open, until he can accept two long slender fingers and the rolling press of another overload, though at least this time his valve calipers have something to cycle down on with those fingers as deep as they can go. Wing’s glossa presses deep, hot and wet and teasing against the nodes it can reach, and Drift would be shouting Wing’s praises if he hadn’t silenced himself.

And that would be mortifying if Drift had any processor capability left to think with.

He doesn’t, though, can only hold on through his second overload and cling as Wing pushes him towards a third with the relentless focus the white jet brings to everything he does. 

He writhes and leaves more paint streaks on the wall as Wing works a third finger into him and brings him that much closer to overload.

Again.

Drift is ready to beg over comms - voice staying firmly offline until they leave this hallway - for Wing to just  **frag. him. Already!** He needs so badly for more than fingers and even that talented glossa, a feeling he never in a million years thought he’d have, but in this moment he will  **beg** if that’s what it takes. 

Again there’s that brief moment of wondering if Wing is secretly telepathic as the white jet eases away from his valve - oh his fingers are still very active, but he draws his head away as much Drift’s thighs and hands will allow to look up at him with those bright golden optics. 

“Shh… shhh…. I won’t leave you wanting.” Wing purrs at him, twisting those amazing fingers deep in his valve to the cadence of his words. “Give me one more, just one more, and then I’ll take you back to our rooms and finish this properly.”

Drift’s engine revs, frustrated and needy and how is he supposed to survive a trip back to their quarters when he’s not sure his knees will ever work again and why can’t Wing just take him here where they’ve already defiled a wall and oh, Primus, he thought Wing’s fingers were determined before…

Wing doesn’t dip his head again, instead leaning the side of his helm against Drift’s left though and watching his face as those fingers keep working. Drift is so close to his third overload, heat coiled low and charge flickering over his plating as Wing watches him writhe on those long fingers.

Drift’s very engine whines as Wing pulls his fingers nearly completely away only to thrust them in again, but it’s the sight of Wing’s glossa licking a stray trace of lubricant - of  **Drift’s** lubricant - from his lips that drives Drift over that edge a third time. 

He comes undone hard enough to force a soft restart, and by the time Drift can online his optics again his feet are planted on the floor again and Wing’s weight pressing him against the wall is nearly comforting. Drift is pretty sure he’s never overloaded so hard in his relatively long life, and Wing isn’t even done with him yet.

Though how he’s supposed to walk back to their quarters, past all those uptight hard-afts in the Citadel when his legs are shaking and barely able to support his weight, Drift has no clue.

He’ll just have to trust that Wing has plan.

Trusting him this far has certainly proven to be worth it…

Maybe a little more won’t hurt.


	3. I've Got a Hole in my Soul Where You Used to Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little introspection in the events immediately following Wing's demise. Drift reflects on his past and makes a few choices on where to go with his future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skipping forward in pretty massive leaps, here, and not really covering much of the time between when Drift leaves with the freed slaves and the end of Lost Light 25.

Drift always thought better while moving. It was meditative, in its own way - letting his body move while his attention turned inwards. He’d picked up the habit as a mob enforcer, letting his mind wander while he cleaned and stripped his gun, then just stripped and rebuilt it over and over again. The repetitive motion became soothing, and had the added bonus of ensuring that his primary weapons were always in peak condition whenever he might have need of them.

The practice had served him well as Deadlock in the Decepticon Army - especially after joining Turmoil’s crew and having to deal with  **that** egotistical mechanism on a regular basis. The soothing, repetitive motions helped him calm down, restrain his irritation and anger at the mech who would eventually try - and fail - to kill him.

That little episode, of course, had led to his meeting with Wing on the surface of Theophany. Time with Wing taught him new ways to let his mind wander while his body moved. At the time, of course, he’d loathed the endless katas with their limited movements and the constant corrections when he did not turn his foot out at exactly a 90 degree angle, frag you very much Wing.

...But the repetitive movements had indeed become familiar. Familiar enough that here, alone on a ship full of freed slaves, he could sink into the katas and just let go of his concerns for a few breems. 

Never for long, and never where the slaves could catch him off guard… but in the middle of the night shift, when most sensible lifeforms were resting, Drift could move, and think - and let go. He was almost certain the sword he’d acquired had something to do with the meditative state he entered so much more easily when he wore it versus times when he didn’t, but that hardly seemed to matter. Not really. Not until the slaves were gone and he had the ship to himself and time to actually, really, reflect on everything that had happened in the months he’d been Wing’s near-prisoner. Maybe not an actual prisoner of the flighty jet, but certainly not free to leave.

Cleaning the swords - especially the Great Sword - became its own form of meditation, much the way gun care had been before. Only now… now there were actually things to reflect upon. Important things that had never been of any real concern when he was just a Decepticon. 

Just.

He’d really only been one more cog in Megatron’s mighty war machine, and reflecting on that left Drift equal parts furious and resigned. Furious that he’d been told exactly what then!Drift had desperately wanted to hear - you will be at my side, important to my War - and resigned to the idea that he might never be more than just one bot with delusions of grandeur. After all, hadn’t his need for more gotten him put on Turmoil’s ‘kill on sight’ list? 

Admittedly, he could have planned his little revolt better, but still…

Frequently, Drift found himself thinking about his past - both as a Decepticon and before - whenever he worked with the Great Sword. It was an uncomfortable realization - that the sword might be the reason he was being so overly reflective - but at the same time… he couldn’t put it away. He’d gotten more introspective after that explosive fight with Wing shortly before the flight frame's death, and if he was going to honor Wing’s memory properly he shouldn’t just stop. 

It felt like there was a Wing-shaped hole in his spark, and even when he hated the memories working with the Great Sword seemed to force him to dwell on, he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. Or even stay away from it for long. The blade had been important to Wing, and even if he didn’t understand all the reasons for that, he’d learned that much. More, he seemed to be getting better at the katas when he used the Great Sword instead of his usual blades, and he’d take what help he could get in that area. If he was really going to try and strike out on his own, he needed to be as good as possible. With no real bot around to teach him, he’d take guidance from an inanimate object.

And if there were times where he felt phantom hands guiding his movements, or caught a taste of exoticly scented wax, well…

He’d blame it on lack of recharge, if anyone had asked. 

Thankfully, after all of the slaves had been returned to their homes - or destination of choice - he’d had a large ship all to himself. Plenty of places to get lost in, echoing the way it did, excellent for a mechanism who didn’t want to let the recharge fluxes get him.

Cybertronians didn’t dream the way organics seemed to, but that didn’t mean they rested peacefully. Some of them might - looking at you, Wing, you dead fragger - but most of the mechs Drift knew suffered at least the occasional memory flux in the middle of recharge. The frame might be all but offline, but the processors never really completely shut down… and sometimes it was only conscious thought that kept the worst memories locked away behind the strongest walls a mech could construct in his own mind.

Drift hated recharging alone, because that was generally when the fluxes got him. Back in the gutters, he’d mostly had Gasket and the others of their motley little group to cling to… and fewer terrors to hide from. As a mob enforcer - in the early days, at least - he’d charged with a gaggle of other mechs in a barracks sort of setup that was nearly as claustrophobic as a gang crawl-away but furnished with berths stacked along the walls rather than a pile of rags and scrap. As he’d risen in the ranks he’d gotten better about sleeping alone, though he’d still hated it. And then the Decepticons, and back to sleeping in crowded barracks until he’d worked his way once again back into the upper ranks. Having time to work up his defenses - and work himself to exhaustion on shifts so that recharge held him in tighter claws than the fluxes could shift - made the charging alone easier. And there was always someone on the ship, within shouting distance even, so he wasn’t really alone even if there was no one else in the room with him. 

Now… the fluxes were back, and there wasn’t a soul on the empty, echoing ship with him. 

Just a hunk of metal that almost had a field more times than it didn’t, and his memories. 

Drift stared at the Great Sword laying on the berth he’d claimed and considered his options. He was exhausted, had long bypassed the point when mechs of his frametype were usually collapsing, but he kept pushing. Had to or he’d get less than no rest for the fragging fluxes. 

He isn’t certain he’s done enough, and the fragging sword seems to be taunting him with the promise of recharge uninterrupted.

In this moment, it felt almost like Wing was with him, and isn’t that a punch to the internals?

In the end Drift is swayed by that achingly familiar field, and he stretches out on his side, curling a hand around the gem of the Great Sword and deliberately offlining his optics. He can’t spend the entire trip awake, no matter what his mind might wish for, and he’s trusted Wing before.

Might as well trust him now.

Even if he is, in reality, just hugging a chunk of cold metal to his chest.

* * *

Eventually he learns - again - how to recharge alone. 

He still works himself to exhaustion before giving in to his frame’s need for rest, but the fluxes are marginally easier to deal with. Still painful, but… tolerable.

Sometimes, when he needs rest but can’t recharge, he works on plotting his future. He needs to find the Autobots, needs to sell this hulking ship, needs to pick up supplies to keep him until he manages the former by accomplishing the latter. 

To that end, he searches through the ship’s database, searching for mechanoid-friendly space stations. He’s smart enough not to expect to find any Cybertronian-friendly space stations in this edge of space. They’re not exactly welcome in this arm of the local galaxy - Drift actually remembers several offensive actions that happened locally - so he’ll have to settle for mechanoid-friendly. Cybertronians aren’t the only mechanoid race, after all… simply the most notorious.

Eventually he settles on a destination, and sets the autopilot, and spends the next span of time avoiding recharge and working on wrapping himself in layers of material to conceal his species. He vaguely remembers how Wing had looked all wrapped up when they’d met on Theophany’s surface, but he hadn’t been in the practice of studying wrapping at that time and the details hadn’t stuck.

Or, more accurately, the image of Wing wreathed in flaming material stuck. The undamaged costume not so much.

So he argues with the flimsy material, draping it around his frame and trying to cover himself without losing too much mobility. He doesn’t have his - Deadlock’s - blasters any more, there will be no shooting his way out if things go sideways. Which means he needs to be able to move, and he needs to have a fast way to access his blades. 

He finally figures out a kind of robe thing that drapes loosely over his frame, the span of his shoulder pauldrons sweeping the fabric out and masking the mech shape. A well-placed slit in the robe is just big enough for the hilt of the Great Sword, which is also wrapped in fabric, though far more carefully than Drift wraps himself. He wraps his face, and then drapes a hood over that, so that only the glow of his optics makes it obvious that he’s not just a very large organic. After a few trips back and forth across the cargo bay to make sure that he can move without losing any of the fabric, he makes a few minor alterations and is prepared for his first trip into the unknown as Drift, rather than Deadlock.

* * *

Drift successfully sells the slaver ship - ships like that, nobody looks too closely at the transfer of ownership. So long as there isn’t an active ‘stolen ship’ warning on the data nets, that is. And there isn’t, not for this ship. 

So Drift sells it; invests some of the credits in the Galactic Stock Market, loads a handful of various credit chips, and dumps the rest in a low-yield savings account that he ought to be able to access anywhere. Between the sale of that massive ship and all the gifts various grateful ex-slaves had dumped on him, there were a  **lot** of credits to be handled. Amazing what waving that much money at a bank could do when you didn’t have official identification available. 

Something he would have to forge, but he had the credits for it, and the kinds of accounts he wanted were usually popular with those who had something to hide, anyway. Exorbitant ‘security’ fees, but he had the credits.

He also had a smaller, more manageable ship that would keep him comfortable and, more importantly, mobile while he searched for the Autobots. 

If, in the meantime, he took care of a few pirate problems, well… 

As Wing had told him, ‘helping another is the highest calling one can aspire to’...

* * *

Eventually Drift gets more comfortable going out on the various space stations. Buying supplies for himself and his small ship. Buying information. 

Eventually, he gets information on Turmoil’s ship. 

Eventually, he joins the Wreckers, and the Autobots, and time moves forward.

As time does.

Eventually, Drift falls in love again. Or further, maybe. Ratchet hasn’t changed at all in any way that’s important from the grumpy medic ‘slumming it’ in the Dead End that had saved old Drift’s life what feels like a million lifetimes ago. 

He has a home on the Lost Light, something that New Crystal City never really had the potential to become - and later, when the find it razed to the ground, somewhere it will never have a chance to become - and something he certainly never had amongst the Decepticons. It’s a strange notion, but one that Drift grasps as tightly as he does Ratchet when the fluxes are particularly vile for either of them.

There are shenanigans, some that Drift is certain they won’t survive, but somehow they do. And they keep surviving and beating the odds and the war really is over.

That’s still a shock, sometimes. Even after everything the Lost Light has been through - completely disregarding the fact that the war was over before Drift ever dropped a centicredit on the ship - it’s hard to believe that the war is over.

Their lives as they know them are just about over, too. Prowl has commandeered the Lost Light for her fuel quills as a way to fuel all of the new sparks from Luna I. Their home is about to be torn apart, and Drift knows it’s for the best.

Knows, and hates the fact.

Until Perceptor and Brainstorm (and Primus trembles when those two agree on something) come up with a brilliant, insane, impossible plan. 

Duplicate the accident that had created two Lost Lights. Deliberately mess with the Lost Light’s Quantum Engines. 

Create a duplicate, but in another universe.

It’s insane. It can’t work… but maybe it will.

It certainly sounds better than a future of just... existing.

Drift thinks over everything he’s been through - all the things he’s survived, and Ratchet’s survived, and every member of his ship’s crew has survived - and decides that if the others have no objections he’s in.

A leap of faith and a chance at something better.


	4. You Could Have Knocked Me Out With a Feather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, it looks like the experiment proposed by Brainstorm and Perceptor worked, and now it's time to explore this new universe the crew of the Lost Light have chanced upon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now on to the real fun! Taking advantage of the alternate Lost Light 25 ending, with a bit of a twist. Rung is alive, though only a side character to this story. Sorry not sorry, I love the little orange mech too much to let him go.
> 
> ""..." = regular speech  
::...:: = comms

_ “And the Navicomp?” _

_ “Blank. It’s got no idea where we are.” _

_ “Bloody hell. We did it. We did it!” _

* * *

Just as they decided that forever sounded just about perfect… the comm system lit up with an SOS signal broadcast in multiple languages - including Cybertronian.

Rodimus whipped around to stare at the panel blaring the call for help and scowled. “I thought you said we were going to end up somewhere totally isolated.”

Brainstorm frowned, crossing the bridge to tap at the Navicomp panel, bringing up the source of the signal and its position relative to theirs. “We were supposed to. This isn’t supposed to be here.”

“Because of course that’s how the universe works. For us. Because it’s us.”

“Shut up, Whirl. All right, guys. Let’s go find out who needs help.” Rodimus cut off the spazzing ‘copter, glancing at his co-captain and officers for their thoughts. “I mean…”

“Of course, Rodimus. We can not ignore a ship in distress. It goes against the Autobot Code, chapter-” Ultra Magnus cut himself off, the tiniest trace of a sheepish expression crossing his face. 

Megatron simply nodded his agreement. “You would not be you if you did not request we go to their aid.” He pointed out, earning several chuckles from the mechs still on deck.

Drift just shrugged, and grinned at Ratchet. “Looks like you don’t get a break from the medbay after all. Good thing we restocked.”

And hadn’t that been fun. Sneaking a full restock on a ship that was supposed to return to Cybertron to be decommissioned. Luckily, their ‘last joyride’ had taken them far enough out to do their required shopping without drawing unwanted attention of the Prowl variety.

“All right, mechs, let’s go. Set a course for the signal.” Rodimus dropped into the Captain’s Seat and grinned, fully prepared for the next  _ Lost Light _ adventure.

* * *

The crew on the bridge (and the members who had decided to gather in the Observation Deck for a look-see) stared at the slowly-tumbling wreckage of a small ship hanging in the black of space. Every full rotation showed the mechs of the  _ Lost Light _ a gaping wound in the rear starboard side of the ship, metal shredded and blackened.

“That looks like combat damage…” Rodimus muttered, rather thoughtfully, studying a still image of the damage. “I don’t recognize the class…”

“I do. It is a Sunlace-class Interstellar Corvette, designed for a crew of 3 to 6 medium-sized mechs.” Drift spoke up quietly, staring at the ship and the damage it displayed. “Dispatch ships, convoy defense, and border patrol… most of them disappeared during the Exodus.” He added, after a moment to pull up the relevant files. Honestly, he was rather surprised to see one all the way out here, though of course borders might be different in this universe and the Exodus might not have happened at all.

The War might not have happened, for that matter.

Wasn’t that an odd thought?

“So it’s Cybertronian.” Rodimus confirmed after staring at the white mech for a moment. “Okay. Let’s go see what’s left. Hate to say it, buddy, but you’re the officer on deck right now, Drift. You gotta stay here.”

Drift gaped at Rodimus for a moment, then spluttered indignantly. “I’m the only one of us who knows what kind of ship that is but I have to stay here and…” He scowled, cutting himself off. Arguing wasn’t going to change Rodimus’ mind. “Fine. Take care of Ratchet.” Because Drift knew that Ratchet wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer where it came to deciding who would be the medic on the boarding party. The former Ship’s CMO might have given up full control of the Medbay, but he was a stubborn mech and would almost absolutely insist on being the party medic. 

Rodimus nodded, and then commed the mechs he wanted for his boarding party. Ultra Magnus joined Drift on the bridge, too large in his armor to easily fit on the ship. 

Megatron actually gave Drift a small, slightly apologetic smile - he certainly understood hating the need to be in charge instead of getting to do the exploring. “I will assemble a crew to tether the ship to the  _ Lost Light _ so that it can be towed to whatever space station or planet is closest.” There was, after all, no point in having more than two members of the command staff on the bridge, and Rodimus didn’t always think about things like that.

Drift nodded, reining in his frustration. Not Megatron’s fault he was annoyed. And the ship wouldn’t fit in the  _ Lost Light’s _ docking bay, no matter how preferable that setup might be. At least tow-lines would halt the spin of the smaller ship, making surveying and any rescue easier.

* * *

::I’ve got a live one here!:: Came the comm from near mid-ship, and Ratchet left Rodimus standing next to the first Cybertronian they’d found (unfortunately connected to the ship’s engine room by shrapnel and very soundly dead). The small boarding crew had been working their way through the two-deck ship, starting in the engine room since it was easily accessible from space, and so far they’d only found the one deceased mech. The rest of the deck the engine room shared had been full of storage rooms and a small medbay that had seen recent usage, if the scattered packaging and ransacked cabinets were anything to go by.

Ratchet found Nautica on the second deck in what had to be crew quarters, kneeling next to a small berth and the mech stretched out on it and actually strapped down by a band over his midsection. Common practice in a ship with no gravity - something Ratchet had actually forgotten about after so long on the  _ Lost Light _ . Ratchet magnetized his feet to the decking and squated next to the unknown mech - a medium-sized green grounder a little smaller than Ratchet himself - and started scanning him. 

The mech - similar in design to the offlined mech in the engine room - had been patched up with decent skill but could definitely use the attentions of a proper medic, in Ratchet’s opinion. His plating showed signs of chemical burns and crushing damage - either he’d been in the engine room with the deceased mech, or had been injured before whatever had damaged the ship and had been taken on-board shortly before the ship was damaged. ::I’ve got this, Nautica. Keep moving.:: Ratchet ordered the Camien femme to move on, before pulling a compact stretcher from a subspace pocket and expanding it. Best to give himself something to hold onto that would also support the unknown mech - no sense in compounding potential spinal damage by letting the mech flop around in zero G while being moved back to the  _ Lost Light _ .

As Ratchet got the mech strapped down to the stretcher he heard Nautica comm again. A second live mech had been found. Better than they’d expected, considering their first find had been most decidedly deceased. He gently pushed the unconscious mech into the hall, and frowned thoughtfully before calling out to the femme.

::I’ll come look, Nautica, but I need you to keep an optic on this one.:: He didn’t want to just leave the mech floating loose in the corridor, if for no other reason than he thought it would go over poorly to have the poor mech wake up strapped to a board. Especially if he’d been aware before being strapped to that berth. Abrupt changes of location between offlining and waking rarely went well with warriors, and Ratchet couldn’t be certain this mech wasn’t one.

Not that civilians took it all too well, but they were less likely to kill someone in the subsequent panic attack.

::Sure Doc!:: Nautica agreed and swung out of the room she’d been in, moving gracefully in the zero G of the small ship. Ratchet spared a moment to envy her that easy movement before tromping heavily towards his next patient, his pedes still magnetized to the decking. Slower, perhaps - and definitely less graceful - but medics weren’t built for grace and Ratchet was in no mood to go bouncing off the walls if something happened and the ship changed orientation abruptly.

Ratchet made his way to the berth and examined the white mech strapped to it. He didn’t see any sign of wheels, and nothing immediately recognizable as wings, though that didn’t mean much considering some of the designs the colonies had created… and some designs that had gone all but extinct during the war. 

Ratchet shook his head at the mental wandering, and set to checking over the unknown mech. More field patches, and to Ratchet’s experienced optic these were self-applied, which meant that in all likelihood  **this** mech had been the one to patch up and secure the other. Assuming he was not an immediate threat to the  _ Lost Light _ and her crew (and Ratchet was never dumb enough to assume anything - except that Drift was too good for him, but that was neither here nor there at the moment), it might be interesting to ‘talk shop’ with this unknown. After all, Ratchet was always interested in learning what the colonies had come up with in the medical field after losing contact with Cybertron. And depending on how long ago this colony had left - and how thoroughly they’d isolated themselves - there might be a lot to learn. 

After making sure the mech wouldn’t be damaged by being moved, Ratchet pulled another collapsed stretcher from his subspace and got the white mech strapped to it. Three mechs of what Drift had said could be a three to five or six mech crew - there might be others still on board or this could be everyone. Two patients from a ship this badly damaged wasn’t bad, really, and Ratchet wouldn’t object at all if this was the extent of his workload. He started back towards the door and the corridor beyond it, towing the offline mech behind him. 

::All right, Nautica, help me get these two back to the  _ Lost Light _ and then you can come back and finish searching.:: He ordered, engine growling softly when she started to argue.

::Sure, Doc.:: Nautica sighed, and followed him back to the breach in the engine room.

Thankfully, Megatron had used tow lines to drag the ship -  _ Grace of Primus _ , apparently, and Ratchet had snorted when someone asked Rung if he objected to the name - in close to make moving back and forth relatively easy. With one more glance to make sure the two unknowns were securely strapped down, Ratchet launched himself through the gaping wound in the engine room with a strong kick, guiding himself with one hand loose around a tow line and the other firmly grasping the stretcher. He hauled himself along the short distance between the two ships, feeling the line shake as Nautica followed behind.

Ratchet dragged himself through the permeable field that protected the atmosphere of the  _ Lost Light’s _ loading bay and braced himself for the weight of the stretcher. He set it down and turned to take the second unknown from Nautica as she crossed into the ship’s artificial gravity, braced for the sudden weight. 

With a few minutes First Aid and Velocity arrived with gurneys and helped Ratchet lift the two unknown mechs to be transported. Ratchet sent Nautica back to the other ship with orders to call him if any other survivors were round before First Aid and Velocity back to the Medbay. Calling dibs on the grounds of having more experience with winged frames, Ratchet got to work on the Aerial. It was quick work to get monitors hooked up - no matter where this mech was from, medical ports rarely moved. He marveled at the lightness of the mech’s armor, trying to remember the last time he’d seen even a civilian that lightly armored. Of course, heavier armor might have saved him some damage - though it wouldn’t have saved the poor fragger in the engine room. 

Absently, he heard First Aid pass up the fact that they had two survivors to Drift, who was stuck on the bridge coordinating their efforts. Aid wasn’t doing half bad as CMO, Ratchet reminded himself, and focused on a thorough exam.

* * *

Back on the  _ Grace of Primus _ , Rodimus left looking for survivors to the rest of the onsite crew and started poking around, curious as to what they’d stumbled over. Megatron was securing the ship to the  _ Lost Light _ , and Perceptor was in the cockpit working on accessing the computers. Accordingly, Rodimus was free to do what he did best - get nosy.

He swam through the null gravity, pulling himself along by convenient handholds every ship had, and he had to admit Magnus would approve of how orderly everything seemed.Nothing was floating loose or out of place once he got past the wreck of the engine room. Cabinets and lockers were securely latched, furnishings were bolted in place but padded. Whoever had loaded this ship had obviously expected the occupants to be there long term and wanted them comfortable. 

Lucky mechs.

There was wear and tear evident, but not as much as Rodimus expected if this type of ship was as old as Drift claimed.

Rodimus poked his head into a room just behind the cockpit that he immediately identified as a galley and gathering place, contemplating the probability that the Exodus might not have happened - or happened more recently than the one in his universe. They really had no clue what they’d jumped into, and Rodimus had to hope that he hadn’t led his people (and they  **were** his people, now, after that slag with Getaway and the vote, and to the Pit with that fragger) into an ongoing war. Or a new war. Or something fragged like that. They were looking for a - maybe not a new start, but a better continuation.

After a moment Rodimus shrugged off the melancholy and magnetized his feet to the floor to start opening cabinet doors. Nothing was locked in here, just latched, and the fuel he found was good quality. Individual sealed cubes and small containers of flavorings filled most of the cabinets at eye level. Others held - oh, goodies! Rodimus started to reach for a box that looked like it was full of copper gels and then smacked his own hand.

“No. Bad captain! Nosy now, nibble later.” 

Not that he could hear himself say it, but it was the thought that counted.

Besides, Drift, Megatron, Ratchet  **and** Magnus would all never let him hear the end of it if he ate something from a foreign ship without at least one of them checking everything first. Just because they looked like Energon goodies, and that’s Energon in those cubes (he unsealed one long enough to verify that - up, mid-grade Energon… solar, maybe?) doesn’t mean that it isn’t poisoned or full of additives that would mess up his tanks. No clue why someone would poison their own fuel, but different frames needed different additives and concentrations and maybe those goodies were created special…

Rodimus heard Nautica comm out that she’d found a survivor, and he put the container of goodies back with a huff. Survivors had dibs on heir stuff, and would no doubt be grumpy if their fuel was taken without permission. Maybe he’d ask later for a goodie… gesture of good will or some such. 

Rodimus poked at that idea, and finally closed the goodie cabinet to go back to nosing around. The cabinets under the counter proved to be full of pans and bowls - no doubt for use making goodies - as well as larger containers of the additives he’d found above. Apparently these mechs bought in bulk.

There was stuff he remembered Swerve bragging about but never able to find - possibly they could set up a trade? Or payment for saving their afts?

See, Magnus, Rodimus could too think about business and captainy things.

Especially where good fuel was involved.

Rodimus finally turned away from the fuel prep area, turning off his magnetics and kicking free of the floor to go and investigate the rest of the area. There was an honest-to-Primus couch bolted down in front of a really nice video screen, as well as low-backed seats to either side of it. Enough seating for five if they were friendly, which matched what Drift said about crew size. 

There weren’t any disks or game systems, but there was a control box next to the screen and Rodimus poked at the obvious power button and pushed back from it to look at the list of available programs. He recognized about half of the titles he saw - Golden Age stuff Rewind had introduced them to.The rest of it was stuff he didn’t know, but if these mechs were from a colony world, it stood to reason that they’d have developed their own entertainment. With a shrug, Rodimus turned the collection back off and pushed away from the screen. There wasn’t much else to see, so he pushed away back towards the door. 

Holding on to the door frame, Rodimus floated in the null gravity and tried to figure out where to go next. He was about to go into the first personal room and snoop through the occupant’s stuff when Tailgate commed him directly. Rodimus pushed off the door and pulled himself down the hallway to stick his head into the room the little white minibot had picked to investigate. Cyclonus was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t close. 

The room Tailgate was standing in was surprisingly empty, all white space and two cabinets against one wall. Both were open, but it was obvious which one held the minibot’s attention. It was a large cabinet, taller than Tailgate, and full of -

::Oh! Are those  **swords** ?!:: Rodimus yelped, magnetizing his feet to the decking and getting closer. ::Oooh, Drift’ll love to hear about these!:: He reached for a gleaming blade with a sapphire gem in the hilt, completely missing Tailgate’s yelped ‘don’t!’ in his desire to touch the shiny. Drift never let him hold his Great Sword, and he wanted to know what one felt like in his hands.

Painful. The answer was painful.

Rodimus had only just wrapped his hand around the hilt of the blade when it  **bit** him. Not physically, like with teeth, but it still felt like it. Sharp and sudden and Rodimus jerked his hand back with a curse and peered at it to make sure there weren’t actual dents.

::I tried to warn you…:: Tailgate said meekly, wringing his hands.

Rodimus glared at the sword that’d attacked him and slammed the doors of the cabinet closed. ::We’re not telling anyone about that.:: He scowled at the swords hidden behind the doors, and then looked at Tailgate. ::Nobody else comes in here until I send Drift or one of the survivors comes back for them.::

::Um… okay? Does that mean I have to stay here? Because…::

::No. We’ll just close the door and, um, that’ll do. We’re almost done for now anyway. There’s survivors so they get dibs on their shitty swords anyway.::

Tailgate nodded slowly and pushed the doors of the other cabinet - full of spools of colored cord and sword maintenance stuff - closed. ::Okay.:: He walked to the hall before kicking free of the decking and heading off, no doubt to find Cyclonus.

Rodimus glared at the cabinet of swords for another moment before killing the magnetics holding him in place and pushing off towards the door.

He’d tell Drift about the swords when he went back to the  _ Lost Light _ to issue his final report.

* * *

Drift finally managed to escape the bridge, wondering about the swords Rodimus had told him about - certainly sounded like Great Swords, but not necessarily - but he’d look tomorrow. Curiosity could wait, right now he needed to make sure that Ratchet left his shift on time. His love had a bad tendency to overwork, even after turning the Chief Medical Officer position over to First Aid. First Aid hadn’t reported serious injuries, so Ratchet ought to be able to leave safely.

Drift entered the Medbay and looked around curiously, trying to locate the aforementioned survivors. He spotted the white and red forms of Ratchet and First Aid near the back of the bay and wandered his way towards them.

He caught sight of green and gold armor and paused to study the mech that First Aid was working on, though it looked like he was mostly just cleaning the foreign mech up. There was evidence of a few weld lines and bubbly, melted paint, but nothing too severe. That was good. Hopefully the other mech was in as good a shape. Drift caught his lower lip with one fang as he studied the mech, trying not to frown. That looked like New Crystal City armor. And he definitely saw attachment points for scabbards on both hips. 

Maybe those really were Great Swords Rodimus had found.

Drift turned to look at the other unknown mech, opening his mouth to tell Ratchet it was time to head home, and then froze.

No.

There was absolutely  **no** way.

He was dead and there was absolutely no way he was lying unconscious in the  _ Lost Light’s _ Medbay.

“Drift, is something wrong?” Ratchet’s voice broke the string of confused thoughts circling themselves in Drift’s mind, and he looked up at the medic in something close to a panic.

“That’s… that’s Wing.” Drift choked the words out, fingers twitching at his side in equal parts desire to touch and desire to drag Ratchet away from the spectre of his past. “That’s Wing, but I don’t know how because he’s  **dead** .”

He’d taken the slaver Braid down and turned back to Wing in time to see the white Knight’s spark flicker and flare out, watched the color of Wing’s armor fade to gray, and fled the spot to take his loss and anger out on the remaining slavers. It wasn’t fair to see that  beloved  white frame laid out on one of the  _ Lost Light’s _ medical berths, gleaming white except for minor injuries and scuffs.

Drift looked away from Wing as Ratchet moved closer to him, the medic’s hand outstretched to take his, and he was just reaching back when a voice he’d never forgot froze him in place.

“Drift…?” 

He’d know that voice anywhere. Heard it in his recharge, sometimes, or when he was working through some of the first katas the white aerial had taught him, hearing Wing correct his footing from thousands of years in the past. 

He’d never heard his name spoken with quite that disbelieving a tone, before, though. Not from Wing, no like he was the ghost from someone’s past. 

But there Wing was, and when he spoke again he sounded no less stunned than Drift still felt.

“Drift, you’re… but… and Ratchet!” 

Well that was different. Drift had never told Wing about Ratchet, beyond mentioning a medic in the Dead End that had saved him when he hadn’t wanted to be saved. At least, he was fairly certain he hadn’t done more than mention Ratchet in passing. But here Wing was, sounding like he was just as desperately hoping he was seeing Ratchet as he was hoping that Drift was real.

What the frag was going on?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this. Last week was hell of multiple kinds and I decided to just wait to post this until this weekend instead of mid-week.


	5. Where Does Love Go To Die?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wing, it seems, is very much not dead. And explains some of the choices that brought him to where he is now - namely, escorted into an isolation room in the _Lost Light's_ Medbay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here there be questionable weapon's technology, and semi-graphic description of how some very important people (and Megatron) die in this universe. Sorry.

Wing’s optics followed Drift and Ratchet out of the isolation room, lingering on the closed door until an engine rev pulled his attention from the ache of his spark and back into the here-and-now. His flight panels rustled against the empty channel where Spark in Darkness ought to be and he wished yet again that he hadn’t gone into recharge with the blade safely locked in the locker. Curse space flight and the safety requirement of locking down anything that could become a weapon - it was a sword, it was always a weapon - when it wasn’t actively in use. Wing missed New Crystal City and his room in the Citadel where Spark could just hang quietly against the wall instead of being-

The others in the room revved again and Wing sighed before giving his gaolers his full attention. The sooner this was dealt with, the sooner he could - hopefully - talk to Drift and Ratchet. With that thought firmly in mind, the white Knight studied the two mechs locked in with him. The flashy gold and red mech wasn’t at all familiar, but the gray mech leaning against the wall… even as out of touch with the war as the Knights had been, Wing recognized that imposing figure.

“Megatron.” Wing murmured; it made sense, in a way, he supposed If he’d somehow ended up on a ship with his dead bond mates looking very much alive and well, why shouldn’t Megatron also be alive and on the ship and… wearing an Autobot symbol?

Maybe he’d taken more helm damage than he’d thought when the  _ Grace of Primus  _ had been sent tumbling. Megatron alive was one thing, but an Autobot Megatron? That was pushing even Wing’s extensive limits of disbelief. 

“Drift identified you as the mech ‘Wing’, but seems to believe that you were deactivated well before he became an Autobot.” Megatron spoke, finally, and Wing wanted to argue that Drift was the dead one. And so was Megatron. But perhaps that wasn’t the best way to start this little encounter.

“I am Wing. And I knew Drift before he became an Autobot, yes.” It still hurt, all these years later, to know that he hadn’t been able to keep Drift completely out of the war. “I didn’t… quite… die. But he was gone by the time my repairs were completed.”  _ And then I found him, and Ratchet, and brought them home and loved them until I lost them _ , he didn’t add.

“Doesn’t explain how you know the Hatchet, though.” Flashy and cheerful cut in, head tilted as he looked from Megatron to Wing. “Deadlock didn’t know Ratchet that well as a Decepticon - well, maybe by reputation, but then who didn’t? - so why would he have told a Neutral, his prison guard at that, about another faction’s medic?”

Wing frowned faintly, but his expression had nothing on the stormy expression on Megatron’s face. Apparently flashy was breaking the script. 

What was this, an interrogation with good cop slash Megatron and the crazy dead mech who seemed to know too much… and okay, Wing could admit it might be a little odd. Flashy was more perceptive than Wing had initially thought to give him credit for, and Megatron was, true to character, trying to play things close to his chest. It was like a bad holo-drama.

“I’m sorry, we weren’t properly introduced…” Wing cut in, before Megatron could do more than rumble disapprovingly. “My name is Wing, and I know of Megatron by reputation, but I am sorry, I don’t know your name…?” He offered a hand in greeting, because he wasn’t cuffed to the med berth and handshakes were an excellent way to both show he was unarmed and a way to get a feel for the other mech’s EM field.

“Oh. Heh. Yeah, I’m Rodimus Prime. But you can call me Rodimus.” He took Wing’s hand, grip loose but Wing could sense strength behind the easy clasp, and the EM field that brushed against his own spoke of curiosity and wariness and a dose of protective possessiveness that Wing couldn’t place. Who was Rodimus that protective of - surely not Megatron? Drift or Ratchet made more sense, both more than deserving of a Prime’s protection and friendship. 

A Prime! There was so much Wing wanted to ask, but Megatron was radiating displeasure hard enough to horn in on the mingling of fields between Wing and Rodimus, and Wing reluctantly released his hold on the first reasonably friendly field he’d felt since fully waking up wherever he was. He pulled his field back to his armor and settled a little more comfortably on the med berth.

“I suppose you have questions I might as well answer.” Wing finally offered, still hoping that cooperating would get him contact with Drift and Ratchet again soon. He watched Rodimus and Megatron share a look, no doubt conferring over comms. 

_ Again with that good cop/bad cop dynamic from a dozen bad Enforcer vids.  _ Wing mused, and he bit down on an inappropriate giggle. He wondered if Drift had ever managed to watch some of the vids Wing had long ago suggested to him… that thought sobered him enough to kill the little grin that threatened to form, and he managed to look suitably calm by the time he was at the center of attention again.

“You said that you died. ‘Kind of’. Tell us about that? We know what Drift saw, but…” Rodimus left the question open-ended, no doubt wondering how Wing would approach the request.

Wing shifted, flight panels fluttering briefly. He hated remembering, for all that the memory files were never archived. Some nights, when he was trying to recharge, the experience would chase him back to awareness and leave him momentarily floundering, trapped between what he knew was real and the feel of his spark fading… He ruffled his armor and didn’t look for the cameras he knew were recording. He just had to hope Drift was listening, because as often as he replayed the memories, he wasn’t sure he could give them voice more than once.

“It was-”

_ [-agony. _

_ Pain so overwhelmingly excruciating that it rides the border of pleasure. _

_ A stray thought muses that this must be the sensation true masochists sought in all their play… _

_ The thought shatters as his frame crumples to the ground, forward motion arrested by the trident piercing his chest, piercing his spark, and the push that drops him to his back pins Too Pure for This World between his shoulder and the broken ground. _

_ Time wobbles, his chronometer seems frozen but he can hear the battle rage around him. He needs to get up, needs to - _

_ Sound comes back first after the static white-out of his injured frame being jostled, but he can’t power his optic on past the sheer  _ ** _agony_ ** _ of his spark stretching in two directions at once. Warmth and comfort pulling one way, rage and despair the other… _

_ He knows that rage - oh Drift… _

_ A snap that’s heard as much as felt drags everything to black to the sound of a furied shout… _

** _“I am not a Decepticon!”_ ** _ ] _

“-painful. I remember pain. And Drift’s voice…”

Megatron’s expression was stony, blank, but Rodimus looked… like he was familiar with the experience Wing couldn’t fully put into words, even after all this time and all the memory replays.

“Painful, yes, but  **how ** did you die?” Megatron rumbled, because really anyone could say that dying was painful, but the method of death was more important here. Wing understood that, even as he hated having to say it out loud.

“I was stabbed by the slaver Braid. The trident he thought with pierced my armor, here-” he touched his breastplate, two fingers-width of space between where he’d been struck and the central seam of his chest plates. “The wound was deep enough to breach my spark chamber, and damage my physical spark.” Even now, centuries past the injury healing fully, his chest ached at times, and he rubbed at the unmarked armor without thought for the motion.

“That matches what Drift remembers.” Rodimus agreed, watching Wing’s fingers move over his armor. “So how did you survive? Spark injuries and containment failure are almost always fatal unless there’s a medic, like, right  **there** .”

Wing shrugged, trying for nonchalant. He wasn’t exactly the most religious mech - no matter what Drift might have once accused him of being - but his survival still made him believe that maybe someone  **was** watching out for him. Just… not necessarily Primus. “I wasn’t really… there… for that. I have the memories others gave me, but without knowing a lot about the Great Swords we carry, the explanation might not do you any good. I know everything we have on them, and I’m still not sure how, exactly, it worked.” That last sentence was quieter, barely audible to Rodimus and Megatron, let alone anyone listening in.

“Try us. We’ve seen some pretty weird slag.” Rodimus countered, looking for all the world like he actually believed that.

Wing considered Rodimus for a moment, before shrugging with a ‘you asked for it’ sort of motion. “Remember, I’m going off of memories that were shared with me.” One last warning to let it drop, let him tell the one person who might understand in person, but at Megatron’s impatient gesture he knew it wasn’t to be.

“I was carried from the battlefield by Spindrift, one of the Knights’ assistant medics. There is a temple in the Citadel - fallen Knights are supposed to be taken there. Spin swears that’s where he was taking me - my frame - but he ended up taking me to the Vault.” And the capital ‘V’ was very much evident as he spoke. An important place, not simply a secure location for storing… stuff.

“Most Knights only enter the Vault once, to claim their Great Swords before officially being recognized as Knights of Light. Even those of us who have served as Daoshi don’t enter the Vault when our initiates go in to be chosen… but that’s where Spindrift took me.” Wing shivered, and wished he could share the memory he’d been gifted, of the way the Vault had been lit with the inner light of dozens of Great Swords, but the wouldn’t understand, and he didn’t have the means anyway. He was left hoping he could give Drift the memory, make him understand how amazing it was…

“The gem of every sword in the Vault was glowing. Dozens of them - Spindrift’s Restless Peace, Axe’s Sentry of Balance… every Knight who came close - all of them pulled by their Great Swords, Axe told me.” Wing reached for Spark in Darkness’ hilt, only to remember too late that his Sword hadn’t been returned to him yet. 

He really wanted the comforting weight along his spine back.

“There’s no table in the Vault, no altar, just the Great Swords in their brackets around a mosaic tile floor. Spin set me down, but Axe is the only one who stayed close I think everyone else was… well, scared. Freaking out. The Great Swords aren’t just metal, but they aren’t - they don’t - we don’t have any history of them acting the way they did.” Wing floundered for a moment, unable to truly explain how extraordinary the whole situation was. “Axe is the one who took Spark in Darkness from the wall, laid it on my chest with the gem over my spark. He told me that he’d had no clue what he was doing, he just… went along with what he was told to do. No… not told… I-” Wing looked down at his hands, tangled his fingers together. “The memory replay… Axe had no control over what his hands were doing. Said it was the gentlest hack he’d ever experienced. And Sentry of Balance was calm, kind of anticipatory. That and the chance to maybe save me… Axe and I - and Dai Atlas - we have a history.” Wing knew he wasn’t explaining this as well as he possibly could have, but there were no words, not really…

“General Axe was never one to willingly let others force his hand.” Megatron muttered, sounding almost… amused. Rodimus looked a little perplexed, and then suddenly thoughtful. But whatever had come to mind, he didn’t bother saying it.

“So, what next? Room full of glowing shinies, Cybertron’s second greatest General turned into a puppet, dead mech with a sword on his chest…” Rodimus trailed off, looking expectantly at Wing and ignoring the heavy hand Megatron had dropped on his shoulder.

“‘Glowing shinies.’ Nicer than what Drift once called the Swords…” Wing mused, and then shrugged. “Spark in Darkness held my spark together until Redline - the Knights’ CMO could begin work on my frame and spark chamber.” Wing went to reach for his Sword again, but stopped the movement before his hand had gotten far.

“Drift taking Too Pure for This World while it was charged snapped my bond with it… bonding with Spark in Darkness kept me from guttering. It’s… still difficult to grasp, and I’m not sure why  **I** was important enough to cause the Great Swords to act the way they did.”

“I’ll talk Megatron into getting your sword back to you. I’ve seen how fidgety Drift gets when he’s separated from his for long.” Rodimus offered, blatantly ignoring the growl from Megatron himself. “You said ‘charged’, though. How’s that work? Drift doesn’t exactly go into the ‘woowoo’, as Ratchet puts it, behind the Swords most of the time. Getting details from him can be like trying to drag details from an Ops agent.”

“‘Woowoo’?” Wing wasn’t sure whether to be offended or amused. He didn’t remember his Ratchet using that particular term. “The Great Swords are our weapons of last recourse - they are powered by our sparks…”

“Oh. Huh. So not as Matrixy as I thought. Okay.”

“Rodimus…” Megatron growled.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. Anyway. You got repaired. Where  **was** Drift in all of this?” Rodimus asked, ignoring the growl.

Wing looked down at his hands, flight panels twitching. “Gone. While I was being moved he decided to take the freed slaves and return them to their home worlds. I am… uncertain… what he would have done if he’d known I’d lived. At the time, Dia Atlas did not know what was happening either - at least, I don’t think he did…” Axe and Dai Atlas were bonded, though, and surely something that important… Wing shook his head, banishing the thought. It was in the past. “Whether Dai knew or not… Drift left with Too Pure for This World and a ship full of people aching to go home. It was a long time before I saw him again.”

Rodimus and Megatron shared a look at that - as far as  **their** Drift knew, he’d never seen Wing again. Not during the war or after it ended And that wasn’t the name of the Sword Drift carried.

“So… tell us about that?” Rodimus asked - ordered, really, but Wing didn’t protest Remembering their reunion made him smile, even if things had gone sour rather quickly soon after.

“I found Ratchet and Drift on a planet called Dirt - no, Earth. Organic. Messy - primary species called themselves ‘Humans’. Adults about this tall…” Wing held his hands apart, to indicate size.

“We know humans. They’re… kind of allies. Some of them…” Rodimus nodded, though Megatron looked less than impressed. 

Wing was starting to suspect that was his default expression.

“Some of them. Yeah.” Wing shifted on the med berth again, unpleasant memories crowding in on him. “Unfortunately for the mechs on Earth here - there-” Wing paused, uncertain how the mechanics of wherever-they-were worked. “On the Earth I knew, at any rate, there were human factions that took  **very** poorly to Cybertronian occupation - and the Decepticon approach was very much one of hostile occupation, not an attempt at mutual benefit. For a specific group of humans, both the Autobots and the Decepticons were looked upon as… unwelcome. And these humans took matters into their own hands.” Wing glanced up at Megatron, wing panels twitching again. “Mind, this conflict was several of their years in the making, as they built up their plans and your Decepticons continued to raid, harass, and abuse their way through multiple human factions. 

Things exploded, quite literally, during a raid in the human region known as the Middle East - resource rich, already rife with feuding factions… ideal for Decepticon raiding. Only this time, it ended very differently.”

Wing sighed. He was telling things slightly out of order - they’d asked when he had met up with Drift, not about the circumstances that happened after they’d been reunited… but this was important. More important than the image of Wing on his knees in front of Drift begging for the white grounder’s forgiveness…

“The humans were waiting, and when you engaged with Optimus Prime… they began their counterattack. Cybertronian weapons tend towards plasma and beam weapons, and our armor is designed around that fact - it’s why blades are so effective, if we can get in close enough. I’m not sure how the humans figured it out, but they attacked with solid projectile weapons. One of the Autobots’ allies identified them as ‘Discarded-Sabot Armor-Piercing Rounds’ in two varieties - a depleted uranium round, and a high-explosive round containing an aluminum-iron oxide-barium nitrate-sulfur explosive known as thermate. Each round approximately the length of my hand from fingertip to wrist, every fifth ‘bullet’ highly explosive, and all nearly impossible to stop. Neither side was prepared for the attack.”

Wing shook his head, glancing up at Megatron and then over at Rodimus. “The results were devastating. Optimus Prime never stood a chance - whoever targeted him knew to aim for the chest plates, and managed to get punch several rounds through his spark. Megatron, as I heard it, went down screaming.” He looked back to Megatron, meeting the (former?) warlord’s optics. “Thermate burns hot enough and rapid enough to ignite energon, and Megatron was shot in the abdomen. From reports, an explosive round went off close enough to the secondary fuel tank to ignite all of it, but the fire was the wrong kind to create an explosion. He burned to death from the inside out.” 

Rodimus made a soft sound of denial and possibly shock - he seemed close to this Megatron but who knew what his relationship with Optimus Prime was like - but Megatron’s expression didn’t change from that stony look.

“Where were you in all of this?” Megatron asked, surprisingly calmly.

“Locked in the quarters assigned to me at Autobot HQ, like a good little Neutral that nobody but the ex-Decepticon would vouch for.” Wing informed them both, ruffling his armor. He’d sat quietly in that tiny room, wondering if he’d lose Drift to this battle after only having found him again. 

He very nearly had.

“When the emergency call for all-hands went out, I offered to help. The Autobots do not have many fliers, and I am trained in field medicine. My help was accepted. In the time it took to get from the Headquarters to the battlefield, the remaining battle-capable Decepticons had all but destroyed the humans’ position and there was evidence of at least a small in-faction dispute before they scattered.” Wing shook his head, both in displeasure and to shake the lingering scent of burning organic flesh and scorched wiring. 

“It’s probably just as well they did, because the Autobots likely wouldn’t have been able to fight them off. Several members of the command staff were killed or severely injured, and it left the battlegroup reeling. Earth’s Autobot contingent had very close ties with most of their human allies, I think, and to have humans turn on them like that… and to lose Optimus Prime…” Wing shrugged a little - he wasn’t attached to the big mech in any way, or even as much to the concept of ‘Prime’ but he’d been able to see where mechs who served under the Prime could come to be very loyal.

“Who’d we lose?” Rodimus asked softly, visibly disturbed by the very concept.

“Optimus Prime. Ironhide. Cliffjumper. Jolt. Ratchet was severely damaged and only survived because Drift nearly killed himself digging the thermate out of Ratchet’s shoulder. Of the Decepticons, I only knew Megatron for sure, and someone recognized Soundwave. The Seekers were damaged but because they were airborne at the time they were better able to escape the humans’ attack. At least one of the Constructicon mechs as well, though I would not be able to tell you which one.” 

Wing glanced at the door Drift and Ratchet had left through, and then back at the two mechs with him. “Several other Autobots were injured, but my focus was, admittedly, on Drift and Ratchet. I did not have as much of an investment in Ratchet, but Drift cared for him strongly and therefore he was important to me.” He felt a little bad for admitting that, but it was the truth. And he had even less investment in the rest of the Autobots.

“Love can make a mech do crazy things, and fear for a loved one can make even the calmest mech frantic. Drift dug burning thermate out of Ratchet’s shoulder with his bare hands - essentially ripped the entire shoulder and arm, and a good portion of his upper armor, off trying to keep Ratchet from burning out. He was damaged, though, badly damaged, and the only other mechs with medic’s training were myself and an engineer named Wheeljack. We did what we could, but the best I could do for Ratchet was to put him in stasis. Ratchet was the best medic the Autobots had, and nobody was capable of fixing him.” 

Wing paused, shifting where he sat and glancing at the door again. He wasn’t sure how the Drift or Ratchet of this place would handle hearing that Wing had effectively bot-napped them both to take them somewhere where Ratchet would be restored.

“And…?” Megatron prompted, seemingly undisturbed by news of his own demise.

“As soon as everyone who could be patched up was… I took Drift and Ratchet and left Earth.” Wing admitted. “My ship was intact, merely locked down, and I was not going to lose Drift again, not after I’d found him. The Autobots of Earth were unable to repair Ratchet, Drift would be devastated at losing Ratchet, so I had to do something. Cybertron was still - is still - heavily damaged, and the closest Mederi station wasn’t close enough… so I took them both home.”

“Home being…?” Megatron pushed, when Wing paused.

“Home. To the Citadel and New Crystal City. Redline rebuilt Drift almost from the protoform out. If anyone could save him - and give Drift his hands back - it was Redline.” Wing looked down at his hands, fingers twitching slightly as he admitted the rest of it. “And I was hoping that maybe I could convince them to take a break from the war, once they were far enough away. With both faction leaders dead, it was going to be chaos, and maybe they’d be okay with being out of the line of fire for a while.”

Wing’s smile was a little sad, but still there. “Didn’t quite work out the way I wanted it to, but better than I’d feared, really. Drift didn’t kill me for making choices about his life again, for one thing. And Redline was able to repair both of them to New Crystal City standards… newly fabricated parts, properly supplemented energon, recalibrations for both Ratchet’s new hand and the original… and of course new hands and forearms for Drift. Of course, Ratchet nearly slagged me when he was coherent enough to understand what was going on.” Wing giggled. “Medics make terrible patients, and I think Redline was ready to throw him off a balcony by the time he deemed Ratchet fully repaired.”

“Pretty sure there isn't a medic alive that likes being the patient.” Rodimus said with a small smile, still obviously shaken but rebounding quickly. “Ratch doesn’t even like leaving the Medbay when his shift ends, but if he’s stuck here because he’s the one injured? Makes everyone else believe in Primus just so they have someone to pray to in hopes that he heals quickly!”

Megatron snorted, but didn’t actually argue for or against that statement. His expression didn’t even change, but he did drag the conversation back on track. “What then?”

Wing shifted, wing panels flicking out and then tucking in again. “I convinced them both to stay long enough to at least heal and rest and fuel completely. Told them what I’d seen of the battle and why they were with me instead of on Earth. Ratchet was… displeased.” Wing snorted to himself. “I am very fast, and capable of ducking almost anything… but he still managed to get a spanner out of his subspace and throw it at me with deadly precision before I could do more than vent in after I finished explaining. And Redline refused to fix the dent in my helm.” 

Rodimus folded over in his chair as he started laughing, and Wing caught the tiniest upward twitch of the left corner of Megatron’s mouth.

“I take it he’s the same here, then?” Wing asked dryly, trying not to giggle along. It really was funny, though at the time he’d been a bit mortified at the experience. 

“Ratchet does not suffer fools lightly. Or appreciate having his choices taken from him.” Megatron responded, equally dryly, which for some reason only set Rodiums off again.

Someone pounded on the wall next to the door and a muffled voice was heard. “I’m not that bad!”

Wing giggled, not bothering to cover the sound, while Rodimus actually slid from his chair to the floor he was laughing so hard. 

Some things, it seemed, were universal.

“No, I suppose he doesn’t.” Wing finally agreed, rubbing at the back of his neck and glancing at the door. “I was able to make him see reason, though. Kind of. He needed to let the new parts integrate, and so did Drift, and I promised that we could go find out what had been missed once Redline agreed. I think, perhaps, having Dai Atlas and Axe back me up helped - that and their promise that we would actually go when Redline said they could. 

“So they healed, and I got to know Ratchet a little better, enough to really see what Drift saw in him. And Drift and I… worked out some of the things that had happened between us when he was first in New Crystal City. I will admit I was very naive back then. And needlessly cruel. I thought I was doing the right thing, and it took a long time to realize that the right thing for a mech of New Crystal City wasn’t necessarily the right thing for a mech from Cybertron.”

Wing sighed, his flight panels ruffling. “We did leave, even went directly to the closest Cybertronian-friendly space station instead of taking the roundabout course Dai would have preferred. Ratchet contacted a Host named Blaster, and things weren’t good. War was pretty much over, but there was a lot of infighting on the Decepticon side, and the death of Megatron and Soundwave meant there were a lot of the more violent groups that were no longer being controlled. The Autobots, at least, had Prowl and Jazz to fall back on. And a mech named Ultra Magnus as well.” 

Megatron frowned - an expression! - as he listened to Wing. Perhaps he could see where things were going, anticipate how his Decepticons would fall apart without strong leadership and a commanding grip on the most unruly members of his army. Rodimus had certainly sobered up and reclaimed his seat, looking thoughtful and perhaps a little sad.

“A very different ending to the war.” Megatron said slowly, expression clearing to that stony blankness again. Wing wondered if maybe he’d imagined that hint of a smile earlier. No matter.

“Obviously. You’re alive.” Wing couldn’t help but quip back, before resettling and sighing softly. “At Ratchet’s insistence we went back to Earth to help what remained of the Autobot forces there, and helped them get off-planet. The majority of the Decepticons, to our knowledge, had already departed - or been deactivated either by humans or by Autobot hunters when they turned violent against all of humanity, not just the factions responsible for the death of Megatron, Soundwave, and the others. The Autobots are much more… practical? Vicious? Under Prowl and Jazz’s command than they were under Optimus Prime’s. It’s possible the war may have ended much sooner if those two had been in charge from the start.”

Rodimus, at least, looked like he could believe that. Wing wondered how much the young Prime had seen of, at least, Prowl’s darker side. Megatron… just looked stoney.

“What of Cybertron?” The gray mech finally asked, and Wing figured they’d taken long enough to get to that subject.

“Infighting took out Shockwave - a fact which no few Decepticons were happy about, from what I heard - and left Starscream nominally in charge of the Decepticons. With his trine behind him, he’s actually not doing horribly. I have not had much to do with Starscream, but this seems shocking to most of the Autobots I worked with while out with Ratchet and Drift. Something about him being a back-stabbing traitor? I don’t have enough personal experience with the mech before the end to judge. Drift didn’t actually seem too surprised, and Ratchet… was Ratchet. He was too busy trying to make sure his own faction-mates didn’t fall into disrepair to get involved in the politics.”

“Sounds like the Hatchet, all right.” Rodimus said with a faint smile. “So Cybertron is under Starscream’s rule, the Autobots aren’t as cuddly as they were under Optimus… what about fighting between the factions?”

“Dying down. Not gone, by any means, but Prowl is practical to a fault. He’s… not happy with Starscream in charge - there’s a lot of bad Energon between them, apparently...” Wing ignored the huff from Rodimus and the snort from Megatron, “-but he seems to actively want Cybertron to survive, and if that means working with Starscream, he does. Jazz seems to be the go-between them a lot. Now that the war is pretty much over, some of the colonies are coming out of hiding, and helping with the rebuilding and refueling of the planet. It’s a lot of work, and we of Theophany - Crystal City and the Citadel - have been cautiously helping with it as well. The Exodus… we saved a  **lot** of Cybertron’s history and technology when we left. Things the rest of you have apparently forgotten or lost. Medicine, and production methods of Energon that can feed smaller populations but just couldn’t sustain a population the size Cybertron’s had been by the time of the war.”

“You, Ratchet, and Drift stayed on Cybertron to help with the rebuilding, then?” Rodimus asked, curious. 

“Nope.” Wing smiled fondly, remembering the argument he’d overheard. “Went back to Theophany on what Prowl considered ‘an important diplomatic interaction’ and Jazz called ‘a long overdue vacation’. Not for Drift or I, but for Ratchet. The argument Ratchet gave against leaving was loud enough to be heard three halways down, but he lost. Something about Prowl being a hyper-tactical jerk and Jazz being a bad influence, but Ratchet came back to Theophany with us. I’d’ve stayed on Cybertron with him if he’d stayed, but since Prowl was kicking him off the planet…” 

“You took the mech and bolted. And where Ratchet goes, Drift goes.” Rodimus summed up, sounding distinctly amused. “Did Drift ever finish his Knight training? And what did Ratchet do with that much time to himself?” There was a pause. “And what happened to them, because there was no sign of them on your ship.”

Wing started to smile, started to answer, and then flinched at the last question and stared down at his hands as his plating clamped in tight against his frame. “Drift finished his training and became a full Knight two centuries after we returned to Theophany. Ratchet joined the medics in the Citadel, and assisted as a First Responder when needed in the city. And then… and then I lost them.”

Wing shuddered, and offlined his optics. “I lost both of them in a span of days. Ratchet guttered after years of getting progressively worse; Age Related Burnout, I was told - he was older, but not  **that** old… but the damage to his spark done by the humans accelerated his… his decline. And Drift… he just dropped in the middle of a sparring match. We were trying not to think about Ratchet’s loss, trying to keep moving… and he just dropped mid-block.” Wing scrubbed at his face with both hands, voice shaking. “I nearly took his head off when his guard dropped so suddenly. There was damage to his spark from all of the abuse he took when he was young, and the war after that. The spark bond we all shared was new, you see, only a century or so old, but Ratchet’s loss… it shattered something in him and he just dropped. Died on me before the medics could even make it to the training room.”

Wing shivered, flight panels pulled tight against his frame as he faced that loss again, and then flinched at the sudden hand on his shoulder. He onlined his optics to look up and see Rodimus standing over him, the flashy mech’s expression pained.

“I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t even begin to help with the pain you’re facing, but I am sorry. Ratchet and Drift are both important to us, not just to me or Megatron, but to pretty much the crew as a whole.” Wing could, vaguely, sense that maybe that wasn’t precisely the truth, but he hurt too much to try and tease more details out of Rodimus’ EM field. “How about we let this little session end for now. You could probably use some Energon, and rest, and a little time maybe to get settled again. We’ve still got some questions, and there’s stuff that needs to be taken care of in regards to your ship, but…” 

Megatron pushed himself off the wall and actually nodded. “Further questions can wait until you have rested. We request that you stay in this room unless escorted; do not seek out Ratchet or Drift.”

Wing’s flight panels twitched unhappily at the request/order. He wanted nothing more than to find the mechs that so closely resembled his bondeds and bask in their EM fields.

“They’re not the mechs you knew.” Megatron said, not entirely unkindly.

Wing flinched and stretched out on the med berth, offlining his optics. He  **knew** that. “I know.” And he did… but that didn’t stop the longing.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> The sword 'Challenger of Ways' was named/created by gatecat.


End file.
